Pencil Lines

Today I have been doing a lot of looking at art. Well, that is, looking at art after having my mum come over and do my laundry for me and cook me lunch and make me tea before scurrying away again. But hey, what else could I do after all that but look at art?

I don’t know if it did any good to look at art all day, since I didn’t do any art myself, I didn’t get any grandiose ideas for my own artistic projects, I wasn’t driven off my lap-top by the urge to sketch, I didn’t spend any money to support any of the wonderful art I was looking at, and my headache has slowly gotten bigger over the evening even after taking tylenol. So perhaps that should be a lesson to me.

But seriously, I couldn’t look away. It started with me going through my list of watched accounts on DA and cleaning it up; meaning, removing the watch of any accounts that are old or inactive or otherwise not in my interest anymore. I only got from A – K, but hey, that’s better than nothing. Through the Daily Deviations I found this one, a so-called Luisa M. Kelle, and I was held utterly rapt. I spent hours moseying through her gallery, admiring her beautiful linework, her whimsical subjects, her fanciful perception of life. Her artwork is like candy for my inner seven year old, who used to love Beatrix Potter, the Wind in the Willows, and thought that Rupert the Bear would be the very best friend ever. (Oh, and we can’t forget Babar either!) Anyway, she reminds me a lot of another of my favourite artists, Luve (aka. Lauren Henderson), who may be a little more cartoony and wholesome, but still full of awesome in the anthro animal respect. Le sigh.

So then my inner critic (his name is Joe) starts arguing, saying that this is real art, this is where the money is; look at how talented this person is, with her beautiful characters, stunning backgrounds and moving scenes, and where am I getting off in drawing all those funny-faced big-eyed ugly people? And ponies? Anthro animals in humanoid settings is where it’s at, people! Whimsy! Charm! Children’s stories! There’s money, story, and fun in that!

Then I did some more clicking around, and stumbled on Loish’s (aka. Lois van Baarle) website again, which floored me with her beautiful girls in such amazing retro textured goodness. This is my generation’s thing, neon colours, girls with big hair, fashion, retro motifs and awesome animation. This stuff looks great, and it sells. Ooooh, it’s so good I can almost taste it, and I can’t look away! The urge to sketch up beautiful girls in interesting clothes in stylish poses is rising…

But then (oh snap!) I click another link, and stumble upon… yes!! Another favourite artist of mine! Erica Moen, of DAR, and I happily read through her comic archives again and marvel at her honesty and humourous lifestyle, squee over her romance with her (relatively) newlywed husband (Congrats!!), and once again just admire the sheer force of will it must have taken her to continue with her comic for so long. I also admire how unique a person she is, how unwilling she is to cowl away and hide her intricacies, and how proud she is to be herself. And she, being the awesome person she is connected with so many awesome people, swung me over to ANOTHER favourite artist (say it isn’t so!), the one and only Dylan Meconis!

Oh yeah, these are the people to idolize, these are the bread and butter winners not only for themselves, but for female cartoonists/artists of the world! They draw comics about issues that mean something, they speak their mind, and they further on the influence of their medium as they do it. They have dozens of friends within their faculty, they do it for a living, and by god, if only I was one of them who could also draw pictures and sell them and things for a living, even if it’s a not so glamourous a lifestyle…

That was about the time I looked at Joe (though not really, you know, him not existing and all) and said “Look, shut up, you. I’m going to make some pizza.” So I did. Now I’m here typing about these wonderful artists, for no real good reason. Oh! I do have art¹ though!

Drawn while watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus yesterday with Dennis! There’s Mr. Raymond Luxury Yacht (Pronounced Throat Warbler Mangrove) with his fake nose, some kind of crazy Amish dude (not a ninja), and some saucy minx who stole some fine gentleman’s hat. The wench.

Next is a picture I drew today (I lied, I didn’t spend the whole day looking at art, though very near it) after looking online for ages for some sort of acceptable drawing program to use with my tablet on my Macbook. The GIMP wasn’t accepting pressure sensitivity for some reason, so I went through a variety of so called free “alternatives” and stumbled upon Art Rage, which I downloaded and tried briefly by drawing this picture.

I don’t know what my deal is lately with the late 1800’s/early 1900’s and those cute little straw hats recently, but there you go. Didn’t like the program much, but that’s just me. Was still fun for half an hour or so. Look! It looks like pencil!

So that’s it for me… just wanted to share some of these wonderful artists and their works, and also do something other than just sit around all day. Hopefully tomorrow I can open my eyes without getting light-headed. Stupid flu.

^{1. This is open to debate, of course.}